‘We need to build an army’: Miami parents mobilize against Centner Academy land deal

The small group of parents sipping Dunkin’ Donuts coffee at a Miami public school’s PTSA meeting weren’t there to waste any time Tuesday morning.

They were there to strategize. And the clock was ticking.

“We need to build an army overnight, essentially,” said Desiree Llopiz, who joined the meeting over Zoom. “We are late to the game. But there is power in numbers.”

Llopiz and other parents at iPrep Academy, a pre-K-12 public school in downtown Miami, were there to game plan ahead of a City Commission meeting on Thursday, where officials are expected to hear public comment on the controversial Biscayne Park land deal at the center of a bribery and money laundering case that ensnared former City Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla.

The iPrep parents are hoping to revive a previous version of the proposal that had been a collaboration between the city of Miami, the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and Miami-Dade County Public Schools. That plan, shelved in 2022, would have replaced the current iPrep school with a new building in Biscayne Park, doubled the number of students it could serve and provided workforce housing for teachers so they could afford to live in Miami.

But in a move that surprised the school district, the city went in a different direction. Nearly two years ago, with Díaz de la Portilla at the helm of the Omni CRA, the city approved an agreement that excluded iPrep Academy and the workforce housing components entirely — and instead awarded the deal to David and Leila Centner, a wealthy Miami couple who operate a private school called Centner Academy.

The City Commission approved an agreement granting the Centners the rights to develop Biscayne Park into an indoor youth sports complex for their school. The athletic facility would be reserved for private use by the school at certain times of the week.

While the earlier iPrep proposal didn’t get much media attention when it was discussed years ago, the September arrest of Díaz de la Portilla brought renewed attention to the now-scuttled deal.

The arrest affidavit filed by state prosecutors against Díaz de la Portilla focuses largely on campaign contributions, alleging that the Centners funneled money through their lobbyist to a political committee controlled by Díaz de la Portilla to secure his vote in favor of the park deal. (The Centners were not charged and have denied any wrongdoing. Díaz de la Portilla has maintained his innocence.)

Prosecutors also allege that plans that had been considered a “foremost priority for the CRA and its staff” — including the iPrep plans with Miami-Dade County Public Schools — stalled after Díaz de la Portilla took over chairmanship of the Omni CRA in early 2020.

Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela — who defeated Díaz de la Portilla in a November runoff — sponsored an item in January to terminate the city’s land deal with the Centners. After hearing public comment from a swarm of Centner supporters, he deferred the discussion to Feb. 8. Unlike the previous meeting, iPrep parents plan to show up to express opposition to the deal at this week’s meeting.

The bribery and money laundering charges against Díaz de la Portilla, and the fact that the iPrep deal fell apart under his chairmanship of the Omni CRA, have made the city’s land deal with the Centners unpalatable to a group of iPrep parents — especially in a political climate where some parents and advocates feel state-level policies have eroded public education in Florida in recent years.

“If we want to save public education, these are small fights to a big war,” Llopiz, an iPrep parent who works for the county school board, said at Tuesday’s meeting. “And I hope we have enough of an army to make a difference.”

‘Public land for public schools’

By Wednesday morning, parents at iPrep had already created an Instagram page, an online petition and a detailed website complete with city memos and a scanned copy of Díaz de la Portilla’s arrest affidavit.

Cristina Alicot, president of the school’s PTSA, told the Miami Herald that the group has also made hot pink T-shirts with the saying “Public land for public schools.”

As one of the parents noted at Tuesday’s meeting, the shirts could help them stand out at City Hall, since they contrast with the green worn by Centner Academy parents.

In early January, a sea of Centner Academy supporters showed up to a City Commission meeting in green shirts that read “Support Biscayne Park.” Dozens of parents and some students spoke in support of the project, saying the Centners’ proposed indoor sports complex would be a benefit to the public, protecting children from everything from exposure to the sun to drug needles and sex trafficking.

Their arguments were so powerful that Gabela, who sponsored the resolution to revoke the Centners’ agreement with the city, moved to defer the discussion until this week.

“When I saw about 100 people show up, and the mothers talk ... that got me, and I said, ‘Okay, let’s give them a shot,’” he told the Herald at the time.

Even an iPrep Academy parent who attended the January meeting felt swayed in the moment.

“I was there and I saw the parents with the shirt, and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, yes to Biscayne Park,’” Tabatha Janna said at Tuesday’s PTSA meeting. “I was about to put on their shirt because I had no idea what was going on. ... And then I started investigating, and that’s why I’m here.”

Although both iPrep and Centner parents are expected to address commissioners during Thursday’s meeting, it’s not likely the City Commission will discuss the Biscayne Park deal. Gabela told the Herald this week that he wants to postpone the item to Feb. 22, saying he’s received several calls from citizens, including a representative from Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

“There are a lot of questions,” he said. “I think we need more time.”

‘It just all fell apart’

Former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell told the Herald that when he headed the Omni CRA, until January 2020, the plan was to divide the 7.3-acre Biscayne Park: one half would be preserved as green space and the other would contain the new iPrep Academy and workforce housing.

Russell said the Centners had already approached the city about Biscayne Park before he was ousted from the CRA. He recalled discussions about allowing them to build their sports complex on the green-space half of the park.

The question at that point was: “Could Centner and iPrep play together, like literally?” Russell said.

But in early 2020, Díaz de la Portilla took over as chairman, and school district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who was also the founding principal of iPrep Academy, left the district in early 2022.

At that point, Russell told the Herald, “It just all fell apart.”

In a series of text messages, Díaz de la Portilla called the arrest affidavit “one big lie” and denied sidelining iPrep Academy from the Biscayne Park deal.

“That space was never intended for I-Prep,” he said. “I never had any meetings, conversations, emails, texts or smoke signals about I-Prep being located at Biscayne Park.”

The city’s agreement with the Centners stipulated that the city would allow them to use the land to build their sports complex in exchange for a $10 million donation to invest in the park space.

“The only ‘deal’ I accepted was a 10 million dollar donation to improve a derelict park for children of all walks of life to enjoy. It is considered one of the best deals the City of Miami has made over the last 3 decades to add and [increase] green space,” Díaz de la Portilla added.

He noted that the city still owns the land and that it can revoke the Centners’ license at commissioners’ discretion.

“This was a fantastic win for our residents and I am very proud to have supported it. The [entire] City Commission voted for the donation unanimously on three [separate] votes. I figure they must have liked it as well.”

The school district tells a different story. In a statement to the Herald, Miami-Dade County Public Schools spokesman Elmo Lugo said the reason why iPrep was cut out of the proposal is “unclear.”

“We had been in consistent discussions with the City Commission about the project and when the final legislation moved forward in 2022, we attempted to include an amendment that would keep the District in the project,” Lugo said. He added that Díaz de la Portilla “acknowledged that the work with the District was important, but did not support the requested amendment and communicated it to his colleagues on the dais.”

Lugo said that the district would still be interested in building a new iPrep Academy in Biscayne Park and that increasing workforce housing for school district employees “would be a priority for the District in our negotiations with the City and Omni CRA.”

In a statement to the Herald, David Centner said that Centner Academy already provides “greatly subsidized housing” to over 40 teachers. He added that he would be open to discussions with the city and school board to “refocus” the school’s teacher housing project “to accommodate iPrep’s new location and additional workforce housing, while providing access for their students to easily walk the short distance to the sports park.”

Asked if he and his wife would consider a deal that included their sports complex, a new building for iPrep Academy and housing in Biscayne Park, as Russell had described, Centner said there would not be space.

“Unfortunately at the proposed indoor park facility there simply doesn’t appear to be enough space to accommodate its full-size soccer/lacrosse fields, tennis and basketball courts, and everything else agreed upon, while also allowing sufficient space for another school and a housing project,” Centner said.

The future of Biscayne Park remains uncertain. For some iPrep parents like Llopiz, that uncertainty presents an opportunity.

“We have to fight differently and smart,” Llopiz said at the Tuesday PTSA meeting.